#1
SangesTheLurker
This is good, right? I mean, it doesn't suck...
CAGiversary! 1033 Posts Joined 7.3 Years Ago

UPDATE: We would like to say thanks to the CAGs who helped out. We've managed to raise nearly $200 just online and around an astonishing $1k altogether, making things much less heart-attack-inducing around here (especially with my job returning to a more manageable schedule and less surprise-hour-cutting state, as well). Mr. Tubbington has been doing great with only one minor incident since the catastrophe occurred about a month ago. Thanks so much to everyone that contributed either their monetary units or just their warmish thoughts.

I'm not one to beg & plead for help (especially when it comes to money) and I know that depending on the Collective Internet's Mood, asking for money is basically an invitation to be ripped apart, yet here I am anyway, asking strangers for donations.

The short-version is pretty simple: we just adopted the neighbor's cat a few months ago, and out of the blue we had to rush him to an emergency animal clinic in the middle of the night two weeks ago. Flash-forward, he's doing well now, but with the tests they had to run, follow-up visits, and on top of this his normally scheduled "maintenance" appointments all hit this month, his vet bills are very quickly nearing the $2k mark and meanwhile my hours at work are getting cut more & more.

I'm a fairly prideful guy, and although I never shy away from a little help when offered, I feel that asking for help comes off as manipulative and generally frowned upon, especially in this age of the "Me, Me, oh... and Me" Attitude.

The Long-Version is quite a bit more complicated:
This is a tough decision to really figure out how far down the rabbit hole to go with this. Not enough detail and I'm just another shmuck looking for others to bail him out of a mediocre situation. Too much detail and I'll come off like I'm hanging a big ol' arrow at the end of my block, nailing balloons to the telephone pole on an obnoxiously colored posterboard sign that screams in big permanent marker letters "The pity party's this way! Over here!"

Earl's Backstory: Earl (or as we call him, "Tubby") has had a pretty rough-life, like Lifetime Network-rough; we're his fourth home.

Spoiler

His story as we know it to be is that, he was born into a home bad enough that he had to be "rescued" from by one of those pet welfare organizations (it explains some of his quirks and neuroses a bit), and was then adopted by a kindly pastor and his wife, he also had a sibling he was living with there.
Although they adored the two of them at this new home, the pastor needed to give the two up after developing an allergen following a massive heart surgery (yeah, I don't know, this is what we were told--maybe they were just being overly-cautious, or maybe not).
After being removed from this second home, Earl was adopted by our now-downstairs neighbor as companionship for her ailing then-husband, when the marriage dissolved however, her ex-husband insisted she take the cat and that he never really wanted him anyway.
Having never been a cat person, with some trepidation, our neighbor took him in for several years (he's currently 10 years old now and in our story) until recently when things started going south for him with his clear separation anxiety after she met her current fiance--the strain of her constantly leaving the house had his separation anxiety at full-bore at all times, as well as the fiance owning his own cat(s) already.
t was at this point, she approached us--knowing that we enjoyed his company when he was left outside for short outings and after seeing how hurt we were after losing our last kitty to cancer a year prior-- and asked if we would be willing to take him in an effort to give him a more stable home. After a trial "sleepover weekend", he took to us immediately and there was no turning back.

As for the Vet Bills-side of things:

Spoiler

No one expects to come home at the end of the day to an animal (or any living thing, for that matter) that has trailed diarrhea & vomit through every room of their apartment, but that's what happened the night of March 18. At first we opened the door noticed a pile and thought, 'oh he's a cat, it's probably just another hairball, or maybe he ate too fast again...' and then we saw that it was just about everywhere. Trails or piles of various fluids in every room (that's 5, if we're counting, plus an inner-hallway), and most worrying was that the "poo" wasn't remotely normal, it was the dark, tarry color of internal bleeding (one of the myriads of tests later that night would confirm this).

Needless to say, we called nearly every veterinarian's office and animal hospital in the tri-county region, all of which were of course closed--which we feared but basically already expected. The message on our regular vet's office recommended the emergency animal hospital that's nearly an hour's drive away "in case of emergency" which we apparently were having. We called, confirmed symptoms, let them know we were on our way and off we went. We left the apartment at 10:30pm, arrived around 11:30, and were leaving the hospital by 12:30am unsure of what results they'd find or if we'd still have our furry family member in the morning, and also? The hospital wanted us back in the morning to get him by 7:30. (Now if you do the math, that's 7 hours total between leaving the hospital and what time we needed to come back for results, which let us lay in bed for a whopping 4 hours of sleep between the hour drive home, the hour drive back, and the few minutes we spent scurrying around trying to cleanup.

The test eventually came back negative for obstructions, leukemia and other diseases and the like. Hooray. Not "hooray" however? The $1100 bill from just the emergency hospital visit, the next $419 bill from that following morning's set of tests, medicines, and eventual overnight stays from our own vet that very-next day. As if that wasn't a suckerpunch-to-the-wallet enough, the follow-up visit added nearly-$300 more I can barely afford to keep piling on that mountain known as crushing credit card debt.

Then there's the begging for strangers' money part:
To try and keep this as short and less-whiney as possible (I know, too late already--I get that), my Retail job has been hitting me hard ever since January, I went from 30 hours-per-week down to 20--and sometimes 15 hours.

I've dedicated 14 years to this place, and in the process have managed to wear-down my shoulders to a 14% state-sanctioned disability rating after taking on a position that I had no business staying-put in as long as I was forced into. Now, with this disability, I'm basically limited to the position that I've been in since last Summer with little-to-no chance of getting out of it, leaving me in the mental & financial state of being nailed to the wall with this job. I went from 32-40 hours every week a year ago, to bringing home half of my pay and just a hint of hope to hold onto that it will go back to at least two-thirds of what I had been making pre-injury.
I've made a massive effort over the past year, trying to adjust my spending, both with necessities and "fun money" (which, as you can imagine, is next-to-nil being a CAG out of necessity to start with). When we took on this adorable cat, we knew it would be tight with normal expenses like regular vet appointments, shots, and everyday supplies (litter, food, et al.) but this "surprise" emergency visit and everything that has followed is putting me squarely drowning in that deep, DEEP sea of financial red.

If this is "not your bag"--that's fine, I can't honestly fault any of you for that.

I'm just another random guy on the internet that some of you may have seen around the threads. I already know most of you out there are doing all you can to hold your own, but if you have just even a couple dollars to spare it would go a long way on this side of the CAGiverse--and of course I'd be forever grateful to know that someone genuinely cares out there.

Earl, my girlfriend and I thank all of you for taking the time to even click on this thread at all.

Guess I don't really have anything to add and certainly don't have a donation but I can sympathize...a bit.

We acquired a new dog (she was a stray) last year and taking her to her first vet visit they said she was all ate up with heart worms. It would cost like $700 to start curing her and more cost later on. They asked me when I wanted to schedule her appointment. My response, "It's a dog; I'm not spending that kind of money". The lady at the desk was dumbfounded. Moral of the story, if you're the type that has to spend thousands on a pet because they are sick (I'm not) and you don't have thousands to spend (I don't), maybe a pet isn't in your best interest.

Don't get me wrong....she's a sweet dog and I love her but at the end of the day if we have to go Ol' Yeller on her, I've got a shovel and plenty of back yard.

#3
DestroVega
Life is short... stunt it
CAGiversary! 7190 Posts Joined 10.6 Years Ago

Yeah I hear that, I know people who spend like $18,000 on their dog after injury and it ended up dying after another year anyway. If I ever decide to get a pet I'll likely get insurance to prevent that sort of thing as long as it's reasonable.

#4
Fatality
Fear Is a Liar
CAGiversary! 2254 Posts Joined 12.8 Years Ago

Guess I don't really have anything to add and certainly don't have a donation but I can sympathize...a bit.

We acquired a new dog (she was a stray) last year and taking her to her first vet visit they said she was all ate up with heart worms. It would cost like $700 to start curing her and more cost later on. They asked me when I wanted to schedule her appointment. My response, "It's a dog; I'm not spending that kind of money". The lady at the desk was dumbfounded. Moral of the story, if you're the type that has to spend thousands on a pet because they are sick (I'm not) and you don't have thousands to spend (I don't), maybe a pet isn't in your best interest.

Don't get me wrong....she's a sweet dog and I love her but at the end of the day if we have to go Ol' Yeller on her, I've got a shovel and plenty of back yard

Yeah I hear that, I know people who spend like $18,000 on their dog after injury and it ended up dying after another year anyway. If I ever decide to get a pet I'll likely get insurance to prevent that sort of thing as long as it's reasonable.

This literally just happened to one of our 4 cats last week. Wouldn't stop vomiting, tested negative for everything except gastroenteritis which we could have guessed on our own since it's a side effect of the med he takes, lol here's a $500 vet bill.

We also took in a 17 year old cat a while back when her owner died and the owner's family couldn't take her in. She lasted 2.5 months in our care, passed away due to pneumonia from lung cancer. In those 2.5 months we spent like $2500 on vet bills. If you really love and care for your pets, they are DAMN EXPENSIVE. All my sympathy goes to you guys. You are doing the right thing for the poor kitty.

#8
SangesTheLurker
This is good, right? I mean, it doesn't suck...
CAGiversary! 1033 Posts Joined 7.3 Years Ago

This literally just happened to one of our 4 cats last week. Wouldn't stop vomiting, tested negative for everything except gastroenteritis which we could have guessed on our own since it's a side effect of the med he takes, lol here's a $500 vet bill.

We also took in a 17 year old cat a while back when her owner died and the owner's family couldn't take her in. She lasted 2.5 months in our care, passed away due to pneumonia from lung cancer. In those 2.5 months we spent like $2500 on vet bills. If you really love and care for your pets, they are DAMN EXPENSIVE. All my sympathy goes to you guys. You are doing the right thing for the poor kitty.

With ours, the vets basically said, "shove a bunch of meds into him, keep an eye on him over the next week, maybe he got into something he shouldn't have" it's like "thanks for the help...I guess?"

That's too bad about the senior you took in, I'm sure she probably appreciated the attention. Now if only more pets lasted longer and some people lasted less.

Wish I could help, but I'm still paying off about $1,400 worth of bills for my mother's cats -- one of which had to be put down (cancer), and the other one now requires twice daily thyroid medication. And since my mother can't be bothered and threatened to take him to a shelter (I, in turn, threatened to send her to Shady Pines), he now lives with me. and so his meds, food, and litter are now entirely my responsibility.

I will say that pet insurance is a great thing -- I've had it for my beagle for about 6 years, and for $38 a month, I get free office visits and discounts on everything. Even if it worked out to be the same cost, the benefit of not getting hit with it all at once is quite a relief.

It may sound weird, but I think I'd be more likely to donate if the cat was still sick. Knowing that it's well makes me happy, but doesn't make me want to part with my money.

While I agree with you that if the cat needed medical treatment it would be more of a pity party, don't forget the fact that the OP got his cat medical care when he needed regardless of the cost. As a huge animal supporter, I can't stress enough how much the cat benfefited from him getting medical care when the cat needed it instead of waiting for donations to get the cat the care it needed. He may be stuck with a medical bill after the fact, but he didn't shirk on his duties of taking care of that animal when it needed it.

#14
SangesTheLurker
This is good, right? I mean, it doesn't suck...
CAGiversary! 1033 Posts Joined 7.3 Years Ago

It may sound weird, but I think I'd be more likely to donate if the cat was still sick. Knowing that it's well makes me happy, but doesn't make me want to part with my money.

No sweat, I get it. It's like it would be more of an urgent matter if it was currently happening, like the money would have an instant action that wouldn't be taking place without the intention you've put into it.

All I'm expecting from this thread at this point is more comments from people that "like" their pets as much as they like their furniture/vehicles, anything outside of that is just bonus.

At this point I am not financially fit to be able to donate anything, but I really hope and pray your kitty cat has a speedy recovery and that you are able to take care of the little guy. We recently had a cat tear his ACL and I know how much stress it puts on the family financially and with worrying. We have three cats and I love them more than most people. All the best mate.

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